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The entrance of the Polish cultural center 'Posk' of the Polish Social and Cultural Association,... [+] meeting point for many Poles in London, England, 11 December 2016. After the Brexit vote, the center was besmeared with racist phrases. (Photo credit:Silvia Kusidlo/picture alliance via Getty Images)

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The latest migration estimate from the U.K. Office for National Statistics gained some more attention than usual earlier in August when the office announced the day before the release that some of its numbers had been incorrect in the previous decade. What was somewhat skipped over in a lot of the coverage of that was something worth noting: net migration estimates show more EU8 citizens leaving than arriving, continuing a decline of migration from that region that began in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum.

The EU8 countries (also known as the A8) are the group that joined the EU in 2004: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Migration from this region was steadily positive since at least 2009, meaning more people from these countries arrived than left. At its highest in the last decade, year ending March 2015, 51,000 more people in this group came to the U.K. than left, (according to the recently revisedONS numbers) and between the end of 2009 and June 2016 the yearly average was +39,000.

Then, right around the time of the Brexit referendum, that number began to drop. In the year ending June 2016 (a period that extended one week past the exact date of the referendum) EU8 net migration was +42,000. By the time of the next release, that had dropped to +19,000 and the next quarterly estimate saw only +5,000. By March 2018, net migration had flipped and that estimate saw 3,000 more EU8 citizens leaving than arriving, and through the rest of that year it was up as high as 15,000 more people leaving than coming. In this latest ONS release, the year ending March 2019, net EU8 migration was -7,000.

The Brexit referendum was in many ways prompted by concerns about Eastern European migration, which spiked in the years after the 2004 accession, ultimately leading to then-Prime Minister David Cameron's pledge to reduce migration, and eventually to hold a referendum on U.K. membership in the EU. With the Leave campaign relying heavily on fears about Britain being too crowded (not to mention stirring up anti-refugee fears amidst the 2015/16 "migrant crisis") it makes a certain sense that some segments of migrants might not feel welcome in the U.K. anymore. While that is certainly part of it, however, it is only part.

“We observe increased levels of anxiety surrounding Brexit that may contribute to net emigration of the EU8 nationals," said Barbara Drozdowicz, chief executive of the East European Resource Centre (EERC), which provides advice and support to EU8 nationals living in the U.K. She said there are many practical concerns post-Brexit.

"One thing is the general sense of uncertainty that affects all areas of life, such as the future arrangements with the EU and ease of doing business with member states, the university fees for EU students, or future ability to bring in elderly parents to take care of them."

With a recent change in government, ongoing negotiations with the EU and the very real possibility of the U.K. leaving the bloc without an interim arrangement, not to mention an incoherent vision of future immigration from the new Home Secretary, things are indeed not at all clear for the roughly 3 million EU citizens living in Britain. This uncertainty is a good example of a "push" factor, where troubles inside a resident country cause people to leave. But there are "pull" factors as well for many EU8 nationals, such as improving economic conditions at home (as in Poland) and opportunities to work and run businesses in other EU countries.

"It is becoming a real dilemma for many whether they should stay or go," said Drozdowicz. "In this climate many families, especially those with small children and the financial resources to resettle back home or in other EU member states, choose to go. These decisions are not easy and often tinted with sadness and disappointment."

The sadness is understandable. Many Eastern European countries have a significant diaspora in the U.K., Poland being the notable outlier with nearly a million. Immediately after the Brexit referendum a number of high-profile racial attacks against Poles and other Eastern Europeans only added fear to the disappointment of the referendum result, and reports of anti-Eastern European racism have continued in the intervening three years.

EERC's Drozdowicz said that among the EU8 communities there is a growing sense of being unwanted and unwelcome: "Hostility and hate speech slowly returns to our neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. We have been receiving increased inquiries from Eastern Europeans, and recent data show that schools have never truly eradicated anti-European sentiment that translates into xenophobic bullying."

And things don't look likely to improve soon. New Home Office secretary Priti Patel recently tried to end EU freedom of movement immediately after a no-deal Brexit. While not actually possible, this was a move clearly designed to appease the more anti-immigrant side of British society and sends an uncomfortable signal to EU citizens about how well they can expect to be treated in the future.

"Our fellow expats (are) fearing border arrangements and any future changes that they might interpret as hostile, such as limited access to public services and fear of discrimination in the labor market," said Drozdowicz.

She remains somewhat optimistic about what the future might bring, however.

"I think we all are looking forward to the situation becoming stable again so that we can reasonably plan our future in the U.K. It would be a great loss for Britain to see its settled European community leave, and it's a great sadness for our fellow Europeans to even have to consider such a move."